Creating a communication system with your pet can be lifelong tool. If you learn a few concepts you can create an understanding between you and your pet. This way you can ask for reasonable behavior from your pet and your pet can figure out what you want and respond appropriately. Positive reinforcement means you are giving something to your pet that your pet wants in order to increase the occurrence of a certain behavior.

* rewards that your pet would want
* if you want, a clicker or whistle

Find out what is rewarding to your pet: it does not have to be food but it does have to be something that your pet likes a lot, e.g. a catnip bag, a favorite brush for a good brush session, 1 cm pieces of cheese, a short play session with you. The idea is that you want to use the smallest amount of a desirable thing for your pet so that, in the end, you are not giving him a pound of lunch meat just to sit down when asked. You may have to start out with a larger chunk of cheese or a bigger piece of kibble, but as time goes on you’ll be able to get the same behaviors for smaller rewards. You will know when the reward is too small, and thus not reinforcing anymore, because you won’t get the behavior you want or it will be a poor version of it.

At a calm time during the day, go to your pet, say “Good, Boy!” or click your clicker and give him a reward. For nothing. What you are doing here is buying yourself some time. You are getting your pet to understand that when you say certain words or sounds he knows that soon after he will get a reward. Your words or your sound are called a “conditioned reinforcer”. Your conditioned reinforcer will be important later because it will mark the exact moment that a behavior has occurred that you want. It is almost physically impossible for you to mark that behavior with the reward, that is why a conditioned reinforcer helps - its more immediate and helpful for your pet to understand.

Do this every day, say 5 times a day at different times. Some pets will catch on quicker than others, some will need more learning time. At first, reward immediately after you click. On the next day or so, give the reward 1 second after the conditioned reinforcer. On the next day, give the reward 2-3 seconds later. You will see your pet anticipate his reward after your conditioned reinforcer. This is what you are looking for. You have communicated to your pet that when you say those words/sound, he will receive something he wants.

You have now established a communication system between you and your pet. Now pay attention to him. When he does something you want, at that very instant or as soon as you can register it in your brain, click and give him his reward - that’s called “capturing” a behavior. In the beginning, choose one behavior to do this with. Let’s say sitting. Just hang out with your pet, be calm, not really engaging, maybe you’re reading in his presence. When he sits, click immediately and give him his reward. Go back to what you were doing. Wait for it to happen again. Do this several times. He will learn that it is under his control to do something that makes you say/sound the conditioned reinforcer and subsequently reward him. Your timing is important here - you want to associate your click with the exact behavior that just happened.

The next day, do this again. This time, as you see him going to a sitting position, say “Sit” calmly. When he finishes the sit, click and reward him. Try this several times. Here, too, your timing is important to your success - the closer you can say “Sit” calmly at the beginning of the action, the easier it will be to use this to ask him to sit when you want. You are trying to get him to associate the word “Sit” with the action that he is doing. Then you are rewarding him for having completed the action.

After a session or two of this, say “Sit” calmly when your pet is standing. If you have done your job well, your pet will understand that you want him to perform that certain action at this time. Immediately click and reward him. Try another time or two and then give him a larger portion of reward than normal. This “jackpot” for difficult tasks can be useful when given time and again - your pet will never know when the “jackpot” is coming and so will be more likely to perform the task at the level that is asked of him.

You can use this method with other behaviors that you observe your pet doing, like coming to you, laying down, etc. As your pet learns this process he will start to respond to you more and more. When he hears a new word, he will know you are looking for a different behavior. But getting to this level of learning will take some time and practice.

“Shaping” a behavior is the next step and is much more difficult. You use the same technique of a conditioned reinforcer and then rewarding but on a much more incremental scale. You are looking for the tiniest of behaviors and rewarding your pet for them until a chain of behaviors create what you want. This is important when you would like for your pet to perform behaviors that are not naturally a part of his repertoire or that are complicated on command. Here’s an example, after each step you would give your conditioned reinforcer and reward; each step may need several training sessions: 1. you put your finger in front of your pet, 2. you put your finger close to your pet’s face, 3. you put your finger at your pet’s nose, 4. you touch your pet’s nose, 5. you touch your pet’s nose and hold, 5. you hold your finger out slightly from your pet’s nose and wait for him to move slightly to touch your finger, 6. you move your finger a little more away and wait for your pet to move to it, 7. you continually increase the distance, 8. your pet comes to your finger over long distances, 10. your pet comes to your finger in various circumstances, e.g. outside, inside, when there are people around, when there are cars around.